Cableway completes first digital recruitment drive

October 08, 2015

Every year, we meet hundreds of people, and read through hundreds of CVs, in preparation for our busy season. These yearly recruitment drives ensure that we are fully staffed over summer time, with only the friendliest and most helpful staff.

To make things easier (for our staff and for applicants) this year, we ran our seasonal recruitment drive from our website, with great success.

Our heads of department appeared in short video clips, explaining what they do, what they love about their job, and the kind of applicant they are looking for. We uploaded these to YouTube, and put them all together on our Recruitment page.

After watching each clip, applicants were asked to fill in an online form with details about themselves, and their work experience. Then, we asked them to record a short video of themselves, with the following brief: "Pretend you're trying to convince your family and friends why they should visit the Cableway, in less than 30 seconds."

We loved seeing the applicants' creativity in answering this question. We received nearly 150 videos, filmed on cellphones or video cameras, and shot in a variety of locations around Cape Town.

Just some of the applicants who sent in videos during our recruitment drive

Our recruitment drive is now closed, but we'll keep the page open a little longer for those who would still like to watch the video clips (they have received over 3 000 views collectively so far).

In the meantime, we are already in the process of training our first batch of new staff.

"Our first group of recruits started last month," says Tasneem Rajie, human resources manager at the Table Mountain Aerial Cableway. "The final round of interviews we are doing now is made of up of a combo of digital applicants, applicants we received directly from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology's tourism students, and applicants who responded to the newspaper ads."

"Overall, digital recruitment is definitely the way to go. The process is a lot more efficient and less time-consuming for line managers."

We will be refining the digital recruitment process and improving its efficiency over time. For now, we'd like to say thank you to everybody who took the time to fill in forms and submit videos.